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Cameron in hot water over OBR economy claim

David Cameron gave a speech about the economy yesterday. Photo: ITV News

Hot water. *The Prime Minister *appears to have landed in quite a lot of it after the independent budget watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, proved its independence by slapping down comments made by Mr Cameron yesterday.

Robert Chote, who chairs the OBR, wrote to Number 10 today to highlight his concern. Here’s the key section:

He goes on to explain that the OBR reckons austerity lopped about 1.4 percentage points off economic growth in 2011-2012.

This is an embarrassing rebuke to the Prime Minister and is the second time he’s been criticised for presenting a rosier view than is warranted.

Only last month the (also independent) Office for National Statistics obliquely criticised a Conservative Party political broadcast in which Mr Cameron said the Government was “paying down Britain’s debts.”

But this is an academic topic and he concludes that other ‘headwinds’ are to blame for knocking his forecasts (the “external inflation shocks, the Eurozone and financial sector difficulties” Number 10 refers to).

The chief objection to Mr Cameron’s claim remains: he was wrong to say that the OBR thinks austerity has not hurt growth.